As the sun rose Wednesday, Muslims around the world chanted and prayed with friends and family after an entire month of fasting from sunrise to sundown. But this year was different.

“People exchanged gifts and hugged one another,” said Al-Qazwini, who founded the Islamic Educational Center of Orange County in Costa Mesa 22 years ago. “But the festivities … they’re not real. There is no true happiness. Today, we think about hundreds of people around the world – Muslims and non-Muslims – who are suffering because they’ve lost loved ones.”

On June 7, at the start of Ramadan, Al-Qazwini’s 27-year-old cousin was killed along with 15 others when a car bomb exploded in Karbala, Iraq, the imam’s birthplace.

What was supposed to have been a holy month of introspection, peace and piety became a time of unprecedented carnage spreading to countries including Turkey, Bangladesh, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

The wave of attacks culminated Monday with triple suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, including one outside the Prophet’s Mosque in the city of Medina, where the Prophet Muhammad is buried. The bombings sent shock waves across the Muslim world. Even though no one claimed responsibility for those bombings, the nature of the attacks and their apparently coordinated timing suggested that the Islamic State group could be to blame.

In Orange County, thousands from local mosques gathered at the Anaheim Convention Center and at Honda Center early Wednesday morning to break their fast and pray together.

The mood was one of quiet celebration because of recent events, but there was still room for levity, said Ojaala Ahmad of Anaheim, who attended the Honda Center prayer service with her family.

“The person giving the sermon saw how quiet everyone was,” she said. “He turned around to us and said, ‘I want you guys to be so loud that Donald Trump can hear us.’”

That seemed to cheer up attendees and put them in the mood for loud chanting and community prayer, Ahmad said.

“It was wonderful to see Muslims from all over the world dressed in their native dress – Arabs, South Asians, Africans,” she said. “Everyone was representing their culture and ethnicity, but coming together as one.”

Mohammed Faqih, the imam who leads the Islamic Institute of Orange County in Anaheim, said his children were looking forward to their annual Eid al-Fitr tradition – a trip to the Original Pancake House for omelets, hash browns and pancakes.

Wednesday’s turnout of more than 5,000 people at Honda Center was the largest ever there forEid al-Fitr services, he said. Even so, it was a muted celebration, Faqih said, adding that Muslims all over are hurt by the Medina mosque bombings.

Alia Abou-Masr of Irvine said the terrorist attacks dampenedthe spirit of the celebration.

“But we have to hope that peace will prevail,” she said. “People will try to use religion to justify anything. That’s why religious literacy is important and we need to talk about peace and tolerance, which are true values of Islam.”

Muslims are getting hit on all sides not just by extremism and Islamophobia but also by political rhetoric during the election season, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino.

“What is unfortunate is that Muslims are facing risks from homegrown bigots and ISIS-inspired lone wolves and extremists,” he said. “They are also seeing an attempt by politicians to exempt them from participating in civic life.”

Levin gave the example of Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson saying a Muslim should not become president of the United States, and the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, calling for a ban on all Muslims entering the country.

“All Americans have to stand up against bigotry and division, especially in the next election,” he said. “Muslims, in particular, must face this issue of radicalism head-on and cleanse their societies and communities from elements of fanaticism. That’s our call.”

Register photographer Bill Alkofer and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Deepa Bharath covers religion for The Orange County Register and the Southern California Newspaper Group. Her work is focused on how religion, race and ethnicity shape our understanding of what it is to be American and how religion in particular helps influence public policies, laws and a region's culture. Deepa also writes about race, cultures and social justice issues. She has covered a number of other beats ranging from city government to breaking news for the Register since May 2006. She has received fellowships from the International Women's Media Foundation and the International Center for Journalists to report stories about reconciliation, counter-extremism and peace-building efforts around the world. When she is not working, she loves listening to Indian classical music and traveling with her husband and son.

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